The darkness was bright.

The silence was loud.

Who would have thought that those were so pronounced during my short two-hour experience in a sensory deprivation tank?

Float Lab, located in Westwood, is the closes float tank next to me. I’ve wanted to try a sensory deprivation experience for a while now and watching a few BuzzFeed videos, I’ve decided to look into it.

I booked my appointment earlier in the week and today was the day.

Overall, it was an interesting experience. I didn’t know what to expect with the experience. I understood the concept, but I didn’t know how my body and most importantly my mind would take it.

Would I freak out and get claustrophobic? Would my mind wander down some dark places or would it find stillness in the void and reach a level of Nirvana? I didn’t know.

How was the experience? It was…interesting.

I would do it again.

I’ve been sick most of the week since I started with the Whole30 diet. My body is fighting the low-carb flu as it finds ketosis and I’m still recovering from that. I’m not at 100%, plus my neck had been so fucked up that it hurts. I have a chiropractic appointment next week to help relieve the pain.

I’m sure that if I was at 100% health that my experience would have been a little more different.

One thing that I didn’t expect was how much you feel your body while in the tank. I felt every muscle sore and joint creak.

For most of the two hours that I floated, all I felt was my neck and how much it hurt. As I moved my legs, stretching them, bending them, I felt the joint pains and the tightness of my muscles. It brought to attention how fucked up and how tense my body was.

Also, I had to pee. Fuck, I had to pee so bad that I almost peed in the pool, but I held it. Just when I felt that I needed to relieve myself, the knock came to let me know that my time was up.

Next time, no water. Don’t drink anything before, only after.

* * *

My body was loud even though it can’t speak.

Different parts of it screamed at me for attention. My bladder pounded and pressed, wanting to be relieved.

My knees creaked as I adjusted my legs. My neck ached as it found its balance. My limbs screamed at phantom contact, thinking that they touched the wall, when there was nothing there.

There’s nothing to focus on in there but your body.

I focused on my breathing. In. Out. In out in out.

In.

Out.

Each breath loud in my head. Each breath reverberates an echo, like a cycle and each exhale was like a gale force wind blowing past my ears.

Loud.

Stomach noises ping my ears with its burps and movements.

In the end, my body was an orchestra playing its distinct symphony of a half-broken man, hoping to change its tune.

* * *

Mind wanderings.

It was fine. It was safe.

I kept mindfulness, being present, trying not to let my mind wander down any rabbit holes or paths that I didn’t want to go or know that I wouldn’t be able to get control of it again.

It was safe.

It focused on the breathing. It focused on the experience, taking in any sensations and observations and making notes.

I saw a lot of green in the dark; then the colors muted to gray dancing clouds in front of my eyes like the Aurora Borealis.

The water and tank was warm, hot even when I first entered, but then cooled as our temperatures found each other.

Notes and observations. My mind took in everything.

It wandered from time to time….

My father. My life. Am I happy? Girls, infatuations…but the wandering was minimal.

Time.

I wondered about time. How long has it been? How much time did I had left?

I was surprised at how much my mind didn’t wander. Very surprised, but it did wander some as there was a moment when I felt that I drifted off to a restful sleep, dreaming of random flickerings that only the subconscious could do.

Those were short and random.

* * *

Spinning.

In the pitch-black, no visual reference, floating in a vast empty void, my mind did at times believe that I was in a vastness of emptiness.

At times, I felt that I was slowly spinning in a circle like a leaf in a still pond. It rotates without a care, but I was still in the water.

It was a very strange feeling, being able to let go reality and believing in that lie.

I think next time, I should allow myself to lose control and not focus on anything. I think because it was the first time, I felt that I needed to take everything in and see if I like what was happening.

I did enjoy the moments of floating and letting go, embracing that feeling of being in nothing. It was nice. It was calm.

* * *

Stretching. Finding place.

There were times when I would just float to the side of the pool and that throws you off and you fight to center yourself or to a point in the pool where you are just floating in emptiness again. Those are the times when it takes you out of everything and you try to get back.

But then there are times near the end when you just stretch to see what happens. You contort your body into different shapes to see what happens. You get listless.

I was there near the end, that listlessness. I think if I was stuck in that mindset for another hour I would have lost it and would have gone to dark places. But in the end, I knew that I had control. I chose to be there and I had the ability to get myself out of it.

* * *

The end.

Leaving.

I showered and walked up the stairs and then out into the world again.

The world was the same as I left it, if not a little brighter and a little louder, but with a sense of calm and serenity.

Even now, my body still feels calm. My mind feels calm. Relaxed.

I’m plugged into the world, in my devices, with all of its distractions that I am comfortable with. There’s no anxiety, but a tranquil veil of normalcy.

I like this feeling.

There’s no pressure. There’s no fear.

Zen.